Beyond Guilt: A Reflective Approach to Mistakes

Recently, I was at Brian Gravestock’s Bike Clinic – designed to outfit and repair bikes for the homeless and unemployed. I love going there. Conversations with Brian, observing his dedication and the kind and respectful way he deals with his customers is as important to me as getting my bike repaired. I frequently leave the clinic energized, encouraged and inspired.

The bike clinic operates from the garage of a shelter helping homeless men transition to mainstream. While I was there, a well-dressed man from the shelter came up to me and talked at length about my electric bike’s battery. I was impressed by his command of the subject. But I was mystified. I didn’t expect an educated and articulate man to be homeless. When I shared my thoughts, Brian said, “Most people are here because they have gotten into trouble. But I don’t think it is right to judge someone by the worst thing that they have done.” Touched, I reflected more on it.

Many of us have experienced guilt being been used to shame us into skillful behavior. The problem is that it doesn’t work very well. When we feel guilty we feel bad about ourselves. This can diminish our energy as well as capacity to focus clearly. Without clear focus, it is more likely that we will do the same thing again. When we do the same thing again it can reinforce the idea that we are, in fact, a bad person. It is ironic that guilt contributes to repeating our mistakes. Yet, when we see this, we can be motivated to find a guilt free way to be more skillful.

From a Buddhist perspective, guilt serves no useful purpose. What is extremely important is to separate out the cause-and-effect of the unskillful action and its result from the bad person who is the agent of the action. Looking this way, we can see that there isn’t an enduring bad person that does bad things. Instead, we see the result of unwise attention, unwise action and unskillful results. When we don’t feel like we are a bad person, we aren’t likely to succumb to feelings of toxic shame. Instead we can see that when we do something unskillful, it causes unskillful results. Seeing this, we naturally recoil from causing harm.

Seeing our choices and their results has positive impacts. Rather than drain our energy and loose focus, we are careful not to make the same mistake again. Since there isn’t a “me” that gets configured when we look at the cause and effect, we don’t see ourselves in a fixed way – thinking we are basically bad, stupid or get everything wrong. Likewise, when we see others make mistakes, it makes it a little easier to stay open to their strengths, vulnerabilities and weaknesses, place their actions in context, and stay connected.

About the author

Ajahn or Amma Thanasanti Bhikkhuni was born into a loving family of Jewish ancestry in Burbank, California. She was first introduced to Buddhist teaching and insight meditation in 1979 in a class taught by Jack Engler at University of California Santa Cruz. From that time she consciously committed to awakening and envisioned living her life as a nun. From the onset, Ajahn Chah, Dipa Ma and His Holiness the Dalai Lama were primary inspirations to her. Her teachers also included Christopher Titmuss, Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfeild, Peace Pilgrim and the work and teachings of Gandhi.

After completing a BA in Biology from UC Santa Cruz, she worked for a few years as an analytical chemist. In 1987 she went on a pilgrimage to India, Nepal and Thailand to meet and practice with Dipa Ma, his Holiness Dalia Lama, Ajahn Chah and Ajahn Buddhadasa; meditation masters she had heard about in 1979.

In 1989, she formally joined the Ajahn Chah lineage and the community of nuns at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery to begin training as a novice. That began the process of intensive training, study and meditation practice. After 2 years as an Anagarika, she received ordination in 1991 with Ajahn Sumedho as her preceptor. She lived at both Amaravati and Chithurst Buddhist Monasteries in England.

For several years Amma Thanasanti was involved in the leadership team and guidance of the nuns' community at Chithurst and Amaravati. Since 1996 her community and monastic responsibilities were interspersed with teaching intensive meditation retreats in the US, UK, Switzerland and Australia.

In 2000 she took Bodhisattva vows with His Holiness Dalai Lama en-route to spend extensive time in retreat in the remote bush of Australia. From that point on, her practice shifted and the place of compassion and relationship with nature became central.

In order to pursue her vision of how monastic and lay practitioners can work together in the modern world to create viable communities for practice in the United States, she took the significant step of leaving the formal affiliations of Amaravati and associated monastic communities and returned to the USA. In 2009 she founded Awakening Truth a non-profit 501 (c)3 organization whose mission is to create a Bhikkhuni training monastery and facilitate ways monastics and lay practitioners can work together to support whole life practice.

In August 2010, after being a nun for 19 years, she was ordained as a Bhikkhuni at Aranya Bodhi Forest Hermitage, in the historic first dual Theravada Bhikkhuni ordination to be conducted in North America. Ayya Tathaaloka is her preceptor.

Amma’s work spans rigorous understanding of Buddhist teachings, non-dual meditation, depth psychology, subtle body energies, and the Divine Feminine. She teaches meditation as an art and skill, integrating body, heart and mind with finesse and compassion.

Currently she is based at the Shakti Vihara hermitage in Santa Rosa California as a solitary alms mendicant nun where her time is interspersed between writing, teaching, meditating and being involved in the local community.

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